


Just

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic, Gendry on the Iron Throne, King Gendry, Queen Arya, Sansa Lady of Winterfell, take the knee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:32:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time ever, he might be able to be just Theon, and for the first time ever, that might be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just

Theon thinks that no one, not even Ned or Robb or Jon, or even Catelyn Tully in all her war glory, has ever looked at as home under the Stark banner. Red hair coiled back, silver armour shining, dagger still covered in flecks of Ramsay Bolton's rust coloured blood, Sansa looks more like a Stark than anyone he has ever seen. She sits imperiously on her white horse, grey and white Stark banner rippling in the winter air, occasionally leaning down to listen to council from a man with a horrid half burned face. Theon dimly remembers his name, as if from another time, but it escapes him.

 _Theon,_ he thinks, his memories holding him together and threatening to tear him apart at the same time. _Your name is Theon. You have seven fingers, and six toes. Not Reek, never Reek._

Sometimes, late at night, under the heavy, oppressive cloak of darkness, he forgets his name for a second and panic overtakes him like a wave, the fear that has never really left.

The body remembers, even when the mind fights to forget.

It is Jeyne who saves him, who whispers his name to him when the panic sets in and he can't remember. It is Jeyne who holds him when he fears that her hands have turned into a flaying knife. It is Jeyne who doesn't scream or cry when he wakes up from nightmares, screaming until his lungs betray him. It is he who is the Ironborn, but it is she who is made of stronger stuff.

 _Reek, he thinks, My name is Reek, it rhymes with weak. Reek, Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with meak. It rhymes with freak._

"Theon," Jeyne whispers, clutching his hand as if it is she who needs reassurence from horrible memories and fears, not him. "Theon." She catches the fear in his eyes like she always does, even when he tries to hide it with bawdy jokes and laughing smiles. "Your name is Theon," Jeyne whispers. "Theon, your name is Theon. And I love you."

Jeyne has her own nightmares, Theon knows, when his own broken body curled around her becomes Ramsay Bolton's, forcing himself into her. When the sound and fire of the whip becomes too much to bear and she sits in the godswood and screams. But she is made of a stronger stuff, Jeyne Greyjoy is, and she holds him up with his own knees buckle.

They are at the front of the line now, household members and folk of Winterfell, to swear allegiance to King Gendry and Queen Arya, to swear vows of allegiance to Sansa Stark, the young wolf who stabbed Ramsay Bolton even as he tried to foist himself on her.

"Theon and Jeyne Greyjoy," someone calls, and they stumble forward.

Sansa Stark looks at them, and a glimmer of memory flashes across her eyes. He knows they both remember the days when she sat and sewed and he beat all her brothers at archery, but she isn't that girl anymore, and he couldn't hold a bow, let alone shoot it. There was once a time when Theon would have swore that he would have died then kneel before any of the Stark children, but that was before pride made him a turncloak and fear made him less than a man.

He falls to his knees in the muddy ground, with Sansa Stark and her dog watching from a white horse under a Stark banner. Dimly, as if he is alone, he hears Jeyne fall to her knees beside him.

Few moments pass, and Jeyne is taking short, quick breathes beside him, and he knows that they are both wondering if Sansa Stark has turned cruel and cold. He fears the flaying knife and she fears the whip, but fear has made them almost inhuman, animalistic in their need to protect each other.

"Get up." The voice is almost strangely light, but Theon moves to his feet.

Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell eyes them for a long time, the man who isn't quite a man, the traitor she thought murdered her brothers, the boy who caught her when she fell from a tree in the Godswood, the warrior who fought under her brother's banner, the fighter who escaped Ramsay Bolton, and lastly, perhaps, as Theon Greyjoy, who is so much more than his memories.

"He hurt you." It is not a question; it is a statement, and there is no question who _he_ is.

"Yes, my lady," they both breathe at the same time.

"He isn't going to hurt my people anymore," she says, and Theon realizes why men flocked to her banner. He recognizes the power in that wintery voice, in the woman with the coiled red hair and laughing face. "And you _are_ my people."

Theon is immediately suprised at being included in _her_ people, but he doesn't say anything. Perhaps, if he is honest with himself, he never stopped being one of the Stark's people. He limps off then, Jeyne behind him, to speak with someone else or another, but his eyes don't leave the young wolf-girl who conquered the North.

The red coiled hair nods at him once, shortly, and he blinked he would have missed it. The white and grey direwolf flaps in the wind, and he can't take his eyes off of it.

"Theon." It's Jeyne, her hand warm in his, her smiling face beaming up at him.

 _Theon._

 _Just Theon._

For the first time in his life, that seems like it might be enough.

 _  
_

 


End file.
